Shinzo Abe retains parliamentary supermajority

Sunday 22nd of October 2017

Despite lagging personal popularity, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was able to guide Japan’s ruling coalition to yet another crushing supermajority in general elections, likely securing his leadership for at least two more years. Abe pounced at a time when the opposition parties were not ready to seriously contest for power, making his strategy of calling an early election an effective one.

Anticipating that he would be returned to authority, it has been reported that Abe may call a special session of the Diet from November 1. That would open up the possibility that the gambling addiction bill and/or the IR Implementation Bill might be submitted this year after all. The legislative schedule does not seem packed with too many other pressing items.

The leaders of the pro-casino lawmakers group within the Diet, Hiroyuki Hosoda and Takeshi Iwaya, were returned to office. However, one opposition lawmaker who has been outspoken in support of IRs, Sakihito Ozawa, was defeated in his own race.

It also appears that Tadashi Shimizu, the Osaka-based lawmaker for the Japan Communist Party who made opposition to the Yumeshima IR plan the focus of his research, failed to retain his seat by a narrow margin. Japanese progressives largely turned to the new Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, drawing some votes away from the Communists.

The net result of the general election for the gaming industry is that Japan’s parliament will be overwhelming filled with IR advocates, even if the general Japanese population is still overwhelmingly skeptical about casino initiatives.

Election